Our minds are magnificent liberators. They are also bedeviling oppressors. Much suffering in life is linked to the entrapment of our minds, as we become attached to the pleasurable highs and find the oppressive lows aversive. How can we mitigate the debilitating messages and harness our minds for happiness?
I am working on three strategies. The first is to interrupt the chatter. When the messages seem to be high jacking my thoughts or feelings, I find that a momentary deep breath or a change of activity provides a sufficient time-out to break through the static and allow me to refocus.
The second strategy involves the decision to create a new routine. Research on the brain is finding that a significant percentage of our daily behavior (40%) is habitual. The more the brain can relegate its management of repetitive situations to habit, the more it devotes its energy to paying attention and solving new problems. Two helpful resources for this are Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit and Daniel Goleman’s Focus.
For the past several years I have begun each day with a period of yoga, reading and sitting meditation. That routine has helped me diminish old patterns and pay attention to new potential.
The last strategy is the most difficult to do: let go of outcomes. That isn’t to say let go of dreams, setting goals and advocating for our beliefs. It means that despite our best planning, our most committed effort and our most devoted advocacy, results may turn out differently. Rather than bemoan the loss of what we had envisioned, we have the opportunity to open ourselves to possibilities we had never considered.
Taming the mind is both a daily opportunity and challenge. What strategies are working for you?
sacredlead 
I tried them all! I did all the psychological methods, all the spiritual methods and then the Holy Spirit and fire blasted away enough of the world’s conditioning in me so I could receive THIS in a Buddhist meditation I was doing in a graduate level class: Jesus came to me and said, “Come to Me you who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest” and a warmth started in my belly and as it increased it rose to my heart and I felt chains breaking off my heart as an explosion occurred in my heart, like fireworks going off, and when the meditation was over someone in the class said, “your heart just opened” … Now life has become a delight and I see EVERYTHING with new eyes, Christ’s eyes, the eyes of Love in the Way of the heart!!!!!!!! God bless you! ~Yvonne
Blessings to you, Yvonne, in your life in Christ.